Blogs from Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, Europe
May 15th 2012
After a wonderful breakfast of searching for flights for Ashley and pastries, we were off to Ravenna for the day to tour some very old mosaiced cathedrals and churches. None of us were entirely sure what to expect but we were all pleasantly surprised at the end of the day. We started out in the rain, wandering around the charming city of Ravenna. We found our first destination, a baptistery with a tiled ceiling depicting the baptism of Christ. We were blown away by the colors, the detail and especially the longevity of these mosaics. This particular mosaic was almost entirely intact and had already survived about 1500 years! The contrast between the religious art in Ravenna and Bologna was as stark as can be. Because of all the rain in Ravenna, frescos, which are so ... read more
October 5th 2010
Greetings to all. It's a little late, I wrote this blog on Sunday in the train on the way back from Vsetín, but I've finally had time to upload it, so here you go: As I write to you all, I’m on the train on the way back to Havlíčkův Brod from Vsetín, pulling out of the train station in Olomouc, having just watched Emily make a mad dash to catch her connecting train. I spent the weekend in Vsetín, a small town in the Czech Republic on the border of Slovakia visiting Calan with Emily, which was a great time. The main purpose of this blog, however, will be to tell you about my trip to Italy. As most of you know, I left last Thursday, September 23rd, on a trip with the high school ... read more
July 7th 2010
Last night, as planned, I ventured out to watch the Netherlands play Uruguay (awesome game, btw). On the way, I passed some coaches with... FEP people, you get three guesses... Yup. Collette Vacations tour groups (for non-Fort Ed folks, these tour groups used to come through the park and were the bane of our existence whenever they'd pop by). They're everywhere. literally, I think. Fortunately, they appeared to be touring the Villa Borghese rather than headed to watch the football. As mentioned, it was quite a good game, Netherlands being the first to make it to the finals. Tonight should also be an awesome game, Spain v. Germany. Hopefully I'll be able to watch it! This morning it was up bright and early to catch a train. I decided I _had_ to see Ravenna after an ... read more
November 7th 2009
The weekend after Fall Break, me, my roommate Caryn, our friend Abby (from our program) and another friend Matt went to Ravenna, which is about an hour and a half from Florence. We took a train which was not that expensive. When we got there it was confusing on which way to go first. We eventually figured out where to go first to buy tickets. We bought tickets for all 4 places to see the mosaics, but they were not all connected. The first place we went was a courtyard and then we went to a church filled with mosaics. It was about another 5 to 10 minute walk to the next church. The streets of Ravenna are small, but not busy at all. I would compare it to Florence, but just not as busy with ... read more
September 15th 2008
15 Sept 2008 It being a cold start to the day (11 degrees when I returned from my run), we didn't think we'd spend much time at the pool, but the boys were keen so in they went. Shortly thereafter they shivered their way over to the towels, and we decided we wouldn't be spending as much time there as they'd thought. So we decided to visit Ravenna. The rental car had developed a crack in the windscreen over the weekend, so by a process of a number of laborious phone calls I arranged for a changover in Ferrara later on. The process was laborious because the customer service number for Europcar didn't work at the public phones. I had to call the local depots to get assistance. After a short ... read more
Stung in Italy(!) and Exit Festival
Published: July 12th 2008Europe » Italy » Emilia-Romagna » Ravenna
July 12th 2008
The journey north from Ceccano in southern Italy to Ravenna was long but unbelievably beautiful. The countryside is very distinctly Italian, bearing more resemblance to Spain than the rest of Europe. Elaborate Italian villas lie tucked away amid lush, green, rolling hills and farmland. I gazed out the window at the hypnotic symmetry of crop patterns against a backdrop of hills and mountains. We were all eager to get to our destination - a very hip beach resort called Hanabi. We had been there earlier this year, and the beach, the staff, and the food had left a lasting impression. We arrived in Ravenna in the late afternoon and checked into our hotel in town. Ravenna is a small city with a very clean, charming vibe. After checking in we headed toward the beach and found ... read more
July 5th 2008
So I realize the majority of my blogs usually have food as the highlight, so I'm taking the occasion to have one entire entry dedicated to an amazing meal that I had this past weekend. All along the Emilia-Romagna coast this past weekend was "La Notte Rosa" or the "Pink Night" which just basically means everything stays open late and there are concerts and other types of activities to keep people up all night long. It is a play on words, as in Italian... a night in white means to Well Fabio and I decided to go, and meet up with friends down there. Well at the last minute (and we were already down in Ravenna), our friends call us and tell us they decided to go to the Lidi Ferrarese, which is the Galveston of ... read more
Postcard from Ravenna, Part 1.
Published: December 20th 2007Europe » Italy » Emilia-Romagna » RavennaDecember 20th 2007
This is Italy, so all the men are good looking and clean and well dressed. Every one of these gorgeous creatures would be considered "metrosexual" and his sexual orientation very suspect in Australia.....mmm....most of them are married, and ride bicycles with baby seats, just in case you don't get the message.There is a belief in the land of Oz that Italians are fat. Not true...not here, anyway. They walk and ride bicycles everywhere I tossed a coin and went to Italy to learn Italian, Portugal and Portuguese was too near to the awful kids and much worse monitors in this year's camp. As a teacher of English, there are a few things that are constants in a good place to learn English. The same should apply to Italian I thought. The city should be small and ... read more
